This one is for you Esther!

Dear Diary,

When I was six years old, we moved from California to Birmingham , Alabama. Little did I know we had moved clear across the country. I have a few memories about the trip. I remember freaking out after I woke up late at night in the car and seeing flashing caution lights. I think we thought they were UFOs. I also remember needing to go to the bathroom and being handed a JAR! At least it was a wide mouth jar like a peanut butter jar. Enough about the trip. We moved to Alabama because my father was going to Viet Nam. (Like Forrest Gump, but we didn't know about him back then.) My Grandmother (Mamma's Momma lived in a little town called Fultondale. Uncle Pud and Aunt Betty lived next door. I can't imagine the pressure my Momma was under living with her Momma in Alabama the year Kennedy was shot in Dallas! and after living in California married with four children for 10 - 11 years.

While we lived in Alabama she had to learn to drive. She didn't know how to drive! That is one of the reasons I still suffer from motion sickness. I can't even visit an IMAX. She smoked like a chimney every time she got behind the wheel and always carried a fly swatter or a stick to switch us with if we needed it. She drove so slow people were always honking at us and flipping us off. Of course there were no seat belts back then so it was always a free for all in the backseat. Except for sista Janice. She sat in the floor board. She never got car sick and she even smoked a whole cigar when she was in grammar school but I've told you that before. Actually one time sista Janice and I went to visit Aunt Betty. She was always so fun! She gave Janice and I a cigarette. I got sick immediately but sista Janice finished hers. Too bad she didn't give us liquor, I know I could have held my own. I have always admired sista Janice's stamina, I think she got more of the tough Caledonia genes than the rest of us. She is a survivor.

One time Uncle Pud told me that he had to baby sit us while Aunt Betty and Momma went to PTA. (Where was grandmother?) (It must have been threatening a storm and she was in bed or in the basement) Uncle Pud said that sista Sarah Ann was throwing a fit. She wanted to go to PTA. He said you can't go to PTA. She said I'm going to PTA. He said he watched her blond head go down the hill then back up the hill toward the main road to the school. Then he realized that she was going to PTA - so he took out after her. He said he caught up with her before she got to the main road. He said, Come on home Sarah Ann! She said I'm going to PTA, then she picked up some rocks and started throwing them at him. Now that she is an adult and can go to PTA anytime she wants to - She probably doesn't want to go. Isn't that the way it always goes?